A. Adhering to proper behaviour in an online environment
Source
Often identified as one of the 21st Century skills or "new' literacies, Digital Citizenship refers to the ability to participate in a responsible, ethical, legal and safe manner within digital environments.
Not only does it refer to digital behaviour and participation, but should also include participating digitally in public life
Greenhow, Christine and Robelia, Beth (2009) pg 126
privacy and safety – don’t seem to be such big concerns as was identified in earlier times
users seem to understand that their information could be publicly accessible, even when they are targeting friends and family in their communications
there is some mention in the literature that people set privacy settings when needed and I don’t think this was an issue among our participants (both of these need to be checked)
high school students from low income families, in their use of MySpace, demonstrated aspects of digital citizenship, particularly in the areas of safety and responsibility. They were less aware of the legal and ethical aspects.
Greenhow, Christine and Robelia, Beth (2009) pg 135
in our proposal, we wondered about cybersurveillance (policing the poor) but this hasn’t come up – do we need to pursue this or drop it?
cybersurvelliance might also be looked at from the pov that if we are exploiting social media for educational purposes can it also be said that this might be seen as a form of survelliance. It might be for positive reasons but the power to do this is still held by a select few. What roles do race, gender and ses play in cybersurvelliance?
Enabling participants to use authentic material from their own lives might be a way to counter the exploitation that might occur as a result of manipulating social media for the purpose of learning.
in this essay boyd is writing about Facebook introducing the Newsfeed feature in 2005. This feature took the all the actions of a user and posted it on the wall of all of your friends. All of the information was already public, but unless you were looking for it, you wouldn't have necessarily seen it ( things like a change in status, or a posting on someone's wall). Boyd calls this "security through obscurity" (this is similar to another author we have who talked about being 'publicly private' on YouTube.)
initially users were very unhappy with the new feature. She talks about the feeling of being unexpectedly exposed as one would if talking loudly over music and suddenly the music stops and everyone hears you yelling. Even if what you are saying is not private, you still feel exposed. Eventually Facebook provided privacy controls and the users accepted and even embraced the newsfeeds. But Boyd points out that now the default is that everything is broadcast, so one chooses what to hide rather than what to share, which can be seen as 'what is s/he hiding?".
information that is so efficiently available also can lead to feelings of invasion- too much information to manage - even with the information management tools the technology affords. Having personal information feeds into the human relationship forming behavior: sharing suggests trust and we build relationships around that (she refers to social currency). But what happens when the sharing is only one sided? IF someone is following someone else and begins to feel like they are close but the other person is not paying any attention, boyd suggests this could be "emotionally devastating"
What this kind of feature does is contribute to what Boyd calls social convergence: " when disparate social context are collapsed into one" (p18) and says this is becoming the norm online. It forces us to navigate various social contexts simultaneously and this is something we don't have the 'social script' (18) for. It also means we lose control.
the point about not wanting to share everything with everyone- the social convergence- I think is changing. google+ the latest SNS allows you to create groups that are private. I think FB even has some of that now too. I will check. The point is that the technology developers are recognizing that people want more control and are starting to build it into the their systems. As this develops, it might provide an option for learning networks that don't overlap with family or friends.... The question is does that then reduce the potential of the medium?
boyd, 2008
B. Using the Digital Environment to participate in civic duties
Attacks on cyberspace marginalized subordinated groups and cause them deep psychological harm.
Joshua Cohen article, Freedom of Expression sited in Keats Citron 89
Attacks have many ramifications such as: economic intimidation, suppress civic engagement, and deprives the vulnerable members of our society their equal right to participate in social, economic and political life.
Kenneth L. Karst, Belonging to America: Equal Citizenship and the Constitution sited in Keats Citron 89
In policy advocacy investigation focus is in two areas. Writerly policy text vs. Readerly policy texts. Writerly policy text are considered to be in the classic rhetorical genre. Whereas Readerly policy texts are considered to be in the civic engagement genre.
McGregor and Price 2010 pg 36-37
Possibility for SN to become an advocacy tool for adult literacy.
McGregor and Price 2010 pg 38
All ABC Canada's interactions are controlled by the websites design and does not invite the creation of new texts or narratives about literacy. ABC Canada positions its advocacy work in what it refers to as awareness raising.
McGregor and Price 2010 pg 38
The internet is a good activist tool. Examples "early and successful use of the internet in the 1990's by the indigenous EZLN Zapatista movement in the Chiapas."
Kahn and Kellner 2004 pg 87
C. Cyber Survelliance
"The heightened visibility that is the result of having a large number of friends is a concern" (p.1007)
Brandtzaeg, Lunders, and Skjetne 2011
"Together with theory from social capital, conformity theory might help us to understand the social psychology of privacy on SNSs. Social conformity often occurs when an individual's actions are exposed to increased visibility or survelliance by other members of a group (e.g. followers"on Twitter and "friends on Facebook)" p.1012).
Brandtzaeg, Lunders, and Skjetne 2
"Conformity effort decreases when participants respond in private"(p. 1012) (Abrams, Wetherell, Cochrane, Hogg, & Turner, 1990).
Brandtzaeg, Lunders, and Skjetne 2011
"The main outcome of social transparency on Facebook is what participants referred to as social curiosity. Users reported it to be both exciting and somewhat addictive to follow other people's lives without one's interest becoming too invasive or visible, ..."(p. 1021).
Brandtzaeg, Lunders, and Skjetne 2011
"in personal networks with high and transparent sociability, everyone's behavior can be observed by many, and it may be extremely difficult to hide. Too much information given and received by too many people may result in a problem for privacy" (p. 1021)(e.g., Schwartz, 1968).
Brandtzaeg, Lunders, and Skjetne 2011
"...several other users also felt uncomfortable with the idea that others may have looked at their photographs (i.e., social surveillance). Another concern was that users sometimes get more information than they wanted about others, when they were sneaking into other profiles or viewing information provided by the "newsfeed." These concerns might be a result of too much and too different social capital: the problem is that on SNSs, people from different social circles mix in the same communication context, which in turn leads to social context tension. "Whom to trust and what to reveal about yourself suddenly become complex issues when the audience is diverse" (p. 1022).
Brandtzaeg, Lunders, and Skjetne 2011
"danah boyd has suggested that online social networking as a mediated public is characterized by four properties: persistency, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences (paragraph 10 pg. 2)" (boyd, 2007).
Albrechtslund 2007
"Online social networking can have a touch of private communication to it due to its situational and mundane character, but mediated publics are obviously not private. This dilemma is, of course, a central part of the discussion concerning survelliance and privacy issues, and is especially evident in connection with secondary uses of available at social networking sites. paragraph" (1 Paragraph pg. 3)
Albrechtslund 2007
"It is well known that since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, government survelliance has increased especially in the U.S. These measures include an interest in online social networking (Marks, 2006). The U.S National Security Agency (NSA) funds research to develop ways of mass harvesting information shared in online social networks, and this news has, of course, been widely noticed among bloggers" ( paragraph 2 pg. 3).
Albrechtslund 2007
"Government interest in online social networking is easy to understand. To profile potential criminals and terrorists, it is necessary to combine a wide range of information about people. This information includes social relations, such as shared activities and circles of friends, as well as personal data about political views, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and preferences regarding everyday life activities"(paragraph 3 pg 3).
Albrechtslund 2007
"It is exactly this sort of information which can be found when studying online social networking. Most social networking sites ask their users to provide these sorts of details; in part this information appears in casual digital conversations within given social networking communication platforms. Consequently, the needed information is not something hidden that must be uncovered or retrieved using exotic technologies, human agents or advance bugging equipment. People themselves are publishing this information in question, free for all to see and collect. Of course, this makes online social networking appear as a "snoop's dream"(paragraph 4 pg 3). (Marks, 2006)
Albrechtslund 2007
"It is only a question of connecting the dots, so to speak, since personal data is available, to some extent from the same source, and often in a combination of different sources"(paragraph 5 pg 3).
Albrechtslund 2007
"An example from the online social networking world is the news story that police have used the video sharing service YouTube to solve crimes (e.g., Maxcer, 2007). Apparently, police in Canada and U.S. have posted survelliance footage of crimes as videos on YouTube, encouraging users to identify the alleged criminals. The police using social networking sites during criminal investigations is an example of leaky containers, since public and private, official and social, mix in completely new ways. Social communication becomes a tool for the police, and criminal investigation becomes part of social interaction"(paragraph 6 page 3).
Albrechtslund 2007
"Survelliance is associated with snooping, spying and privacy invasion, and it is a prevalent view that everything related to it should be avoided if possible. This is in line with familiar frameworks such as Big Brother and Panopticon, but the problem is that they do not seem to adequately describe the actual practice of online social networking" (paragraph 5 page 4).
Albrechtslund 2007
"The word survelliance is etymologically associated with the French word surveiller, which translates simply as to watch over. The verb suggests the visual practice of a person looking carefully at someone or something from above. Both in ordinary language and within academic debate, the practice of 'watching over" has become a metaphor for all other monitoring activities. Thus, the understanding of survellance is not limited to a visual practice; rather it involves all senses - data collection and technological mediation"(paragraph 12 page 4).
Albrechtslund 2007
"Further, the survellance relationship can be mutual as described by Mark Andrejevic who has introduced the concept lateral survelliance: "Lateral survellance, or peer-to-peer monitoring, understood as the use of survellance tools by individuals rather than by agents of institutions public or private, to keep track of one another, covers (but is not limited to)three main categories: romantic interests, family, and friends or acquaintances" (paragraph 14 p. 4).
Albrechtslund 2007
"In an era in which everyone is considered potentially suspect, we are invited to become spies - for our own good." [8](paragraph 2 p. 5)
Albrechtslund 2007
"Online social networking can also be empowering for the user, as the monitoring and registration facilitates new ways of constructing identity, meeting friends and colleagues as well as socializing with strangers. This changes the role of the user from passive to active, since survellance in this context offers opportunities to take action, seek information, and communicate. Online social networking therefore illustrates that survellance as a mutual, empowering and subjectivity building practice - is fundamentally social"(Paragraph 7 p. 5).
Albrechtslund 2007
"The Panopticon is set up in a way for the prisoners to take part in their own surveillance by internalizing the gaze of the watcher, and in Orwell's novel the citizens of Ocenaia ends up taking part in their own (an others') surveillance in their "love" of Big Brother. Here, the self-surveillance is inflicted on the people watched, as they are caught up in a power relation (Foucault, 1975) or as a result of the brainwashing carried out by the Ministry of Love (Orwell, 1949) Both of these disciplinary practices disempower and, thus, disengage the subject of surveillance. Therefore, concepts such as participatory panopticon (Cascio, 2006) are contradictory or, at best, redundant, if the internalizing of the gaze is interpreted as a form of pseudo-participation"(paragraph 9 p. 5).
Albrechtslund 2007
"The practice of online social networking can be seen as empowering, as it is a way to voluntarily engage with other people and construct identities, and it can thus be described as participatory. It is important to not automatically assume that the personal information and communication, which online social networking is based on, is only a commodity for trading, Implicit in this interpretation is that to be under survellance is undesirable. However, to participate in online social networking is about the act of sharing yourself - or your constructed identity - with others" ( paragraph 10 p. 5).
Albrechtslund 2007
blog post by senior Atlantic Magazine editor. He used to think that real names in social media were a good thing. they helped to maintain the integrity of people's posts because they couldn't hide behind anonymity and he felt this was an accurate reflection of our real world social interactions.
however, the debate about Google plus and FB requiring real names has changed his mind. The reason being that "They are creating tighter links between people's behavior and their identities than has previously existed in the modern world." in real life there are very few statement that we say that we expect to be public, permanent and attached to our identity. (unless you are a famous person or speaking on tv). But online, it is public, it is permanent and real names means it will be attached to one's identity. This is a huge change and he says it should be talked about and discussed rather than pretend these companies are mimicking real life. Do the benefits of pseudonyms outweigh the benefits of using real names ? He doesn't say, just asks the question.
Digital Citizenship